


Play the King

by BlueSpectre



Category: Left 4 Dead (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Guns, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Swearing, Zombies
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-12
Updated: 2018-12-07
Packaged: 2019-08-22 12:56:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 20,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16598315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueSpectre/pseuds/BlueSpectre
Summary: Their lives were normal, relatively, and without the apocalypse, none of them would have ever met. As fate would have it, theirs rests on the shoulders of each other as they're forced to work together to survive, or perish.Nick thought this was going to be his way out, his line in the sand. He never expected to spend longer than a week with these people, but as the situation changes, so does his attitude.And he has a choice to make.





	1. Faded Signal

    There was nothing that could be done, Nick knew that. Any form of resistance would have been met by a bullet in the back, damming himself and the others along with him. Even as they were being harshly shoved down the plane’s off ramp, Nick kept his head cool.

    But that didn’t mean that he wasn’t pissed. He glared at the military plane with a harsh fire that ignited in his chest, hoping that they’d crash straight into a river. Stripped of their weapons and equipment, they were abandoned in the middle of an open field for fear of their ‘infection spreading’, despite the fact that they knew they were immune. The amount of times that they had been poked and prodded at only to be told the same damn thing infuriated the gambler beyond the breaking point.

    Nick wanted nothing more than to punch something, but instead he settled for screaming obscenities into the sky after the plane that steadily disappeared from view. For once, the other survivors let the con-man rage, as the situation they found themselves in left them with little to no hope. Nick was red in the face, fists balled tightly at his sides, and his expression threatened to stay etched into his features like stone. The anger made his whole body shake.

“Mother fucking, candyass, piece of shit cowards! Burn in hell you goddamn, shitkicking assholes!”

“Nick,”

“Choke on your fucked up sense of superiority you cocksucking bastards!”

“ _Nick_ ,”

“I hope _y’all_ fly right into a fucking burning bridge, goddamn worthless, useless, good for fucking nothing--”

“NICK!”

“ _WHAT?!”_

Nick turned to find himself snarling at Rochelle, a calm expression on her tired face. She offered a gentle hand on his shoulder, Nick taking a careful breath as a result.

“So now what?” he hissed, pinching the bridge of his nose and kicking a rock away from him.

“I got an idea,” Ellis spoke up, crossing his arms over his chest. “If yer done screaming at the heavens.”

The gambler motioned for him to continue, albeit with an irritable edge.

“Aight, so, apparently there’s a bigass compound inside ‘a Topeka. It’s run by a buncha survivors like us, and I’m talkin’ _military base_ bigass compound that was taken over after Uncle Sam pulled out.

    “So I’m thinkin’ our best bet is to head up there, find that base, then hole up in there until this either blows over or we die of old age.”

    The last bit was said with a laugh that died quick in his throat as he noticed Nick’s perplexed look.

    “How the hell do you know all of that?”

    “Should try talkin’ to people sometime, Nick,” The hick pat the other man’s shoulder as he passed him, walking ahead of the others to try and get his bearings.

    Coach and Rochelle agreed with the plan, as did Nick - despite him expressing his doubt that such a place existed and being told to shut up for it - because it was a better plan that just holding out in the open in the vague hope that someone would find their sorry asses and take pity on them. They all also agreed that their first step was to find guns and supplies, Nick pouting over his lost shotgun as they traipsed through the overgrown cornfield.

Finding New Orleans had not gone the way that they planned. That was supposed to be it, that meant they were home free and would enjoy safety and protection a meal that was more than just whatever they found in abandoned houses along the roads and maybe, just _maybe_ work on building a normal life again. But if there was anything the last six months had taught Nick, it was that nothing worked in their favor. It was one problem after the next, another jammed cog in their plans that forced them to start over.

And Nick wasn’t sure how much more of it he could take.  

    Still, they haven’t seen any signs of zombies in the immediate area, so he supposed he could find a positive in it all.

    Find a positive. Shit, he was starting to sound like Ellis.

    As the group navigated defenseless through the fields, Nick kept his pace behind Coach, keeping his ears tuned to anything that didn’t sound familiar, like the steps of the ones ahead of him, the crunching of parched land beneath them. He could feel the hair on the back of his neck standing up and goosebumps raising scaley across his skin. He didn’t like being armed with only his hands, even when the infection started he wasn’t without his piece.

    His magnum. Which was now sitting on the belt of soldier.

    “Fuck me,” he muttered under his breath, quiet enough to where Coach didn’t hear him. Was it possible to mourn the loss of a gun? Because that’s what Nick was feeling, he’s had that pistol since he first joined--

    Well, the name of the gang didn’t matter now. They were likely all dead. The point was that he’s had that gun for _years_ only to lose it to some paranoid shitforbrains that decided that this group wasn’t worth saving.

    Nick kicked another rock away from him and stuffed his hands into his pockets in a pout.

    Ellis shouted ahead that he could see a sign standing above the field and suggested heading towards it, when asked what it said he responded that the overgrown corn stalks were blocking the view. Nick was tempted to make a literacy joke, but decided against it.

    The further they walked through the field the more Nick was regretting staying behind Coach. The larger man pushing aside the stalks with little to no regard for the man behind him, several even hitting Nick in the face as Coach pushed them behind him. Eventually, Nick grabbed a stalk and snapped it in half, the ex-teacher stopping for a moment to turn and give Nick a look.

    “Takin’ your anger out on the corn, son?”

    “Keep walking,” Nick warned in a low voice.

    “S’alright, Nick, everyone’s got their outlets.” Ellis teased, Rochelle giggling next to him.

    “All of you shut up and leave me alone.”

    The gangster got his wish, the others continuing their pace as Nick fell slightly behind to avoid the reprimands of ill tended to crop plants. He couldn’t hear or see any infected, so he allowed himself a bit of much needed solitude. His guard hadn’t dropped, and every sound set him on alert, but it always turned out to be a crow or a rat.

    His mind went to the compound Ellis mentioned and he couldn’t help but feel hope and excitement swell in his chest even though he _knew_ he shouldn’t. However, the concept of a hot shower and food that wasn’t dehydrated military rations or something from a can he didn’t trust sent a new flash of will through his bones. The last time he bathed was when they found a still powered police station in Jackson Mississippi, where he had tossed his soiled suit into the hot shower with him.

But that was over four months ago, and since then Nick had been covered in a thousand different kinds of nasty like blood, vomit, spit, swamp water, and christ knows what else. He suddenly felt like he was nothing more than a layer of grime and the dreadful feeling settled in the pit of his stomach. The food he didn’t mind, you stopped tasting it after a while and when you were starving, it didn’t matter what you ate.

But constantly being this disgusting? He couldn’t handle it.

If this compound did exist - and Nick had to keep saying that to himself, _if_ \- then Nick might _actually_ be happy for more than a split second. No zombies, hot showers, a decent meal, somewhere he could lay his head without worrying about it being torn off. If he was _really_ lucky, he could find someone to clean his suit, or even find a men’s store to do it him-damn-self. The thing barely looked like a suit anymore, it was more tathers and stains than it could be considered anything even remotely classy.

The gambler sighed. He missed the days where he didn’t have to worry about some mouthbreather drooling on him, their breath bad enough to knock birds out of the sky. He also missed cars. The blisters on his feet were outrageous.

While lost in thought, Nick didn’t see the body ahead of him and very nearly tripped over its outstretched hand. When he looked down to investigate he had noticed something gleaming in the dirt. Upon kneeling down and uncovering it, he discovered that it was a combat knife, its wielder sporting a hole in the back of their head. But there was something strange about it.

The bullet had gone clean through their skull, burned skin on their scalp suggested that the barrel had to have been personally close to the victim’s head. This was an execution.

Nick took the knife from the hand long stiffened by the effects of rigor mortis and used the butt of it to turn the corpse’s face out of the dirt. They had been out here for a while, their face sunken in as it began to decay, but the survivor had noticed a distinct lack of blood running from their eye sockets, or even the tapetum lucidum that found itself present within the eyes of every zombie Nick had come across.

Their body sported a thick hoodie and even thicker jeans, neither of which had been torn at to indicate a possible bite.

    This person wasn’t infected, which made the bullet hole all the more suspicious.

    He looked up from the body to see his companions walking further away from him, telling him that they had either missed the body or they had simply passed over it believing it was just the corpse of an undead. Nick narrowed his eyes and hummed as he stood straight up again, sticking the knife into the holster on his thigh. He debated bringing them back over to overlook the body, but merely stepped over it after a moment of thought.

    If it was important, he’d bring it up later.

* * *

 

    It felt as if it took _ages_ to get through the field, Nick grumbling as he pulled dried and dead pieces of stalk out of his hair. Rochelle laughed again, a soft and pleasant chuckle as she helped him de-corn himself, Nick returning the favor once he was sure he didn’t feel itchy anymore.

    “Jackpot, y’all!” Ellis exclaimed excitedly, pointing triumphantly at the sign that helped him navigate through the maize. “A motel, and there ain’t a zombie for miles!”

    “That we know of,” Coach spoke, planting himself in front of the mechanic. “We still should be careful checking it out, but we gotta be quick about it. We’re runnin’ out of daylight.”

    Nick looked up into the sky and sure enough, the sun was beginning to get comfortable on the horizon. The outside of the motel seemed relatively normal, - as normal as any run down motel in the middle of the south was, anyway - and there was a distinct lack of zombies anywhere around it and he couldn’t see any movement inside.

    But looks could be deceiving, Nick thought back to a certain moment to where he thought a woman was in distress at a motel at the start of all this and for once in his selfish life decided to try and help,

    Only to end up with a talon in the shoulder. The gambler rolled that shoulder at the memory, following Coach again as they carefully made their way to the motel. They went in teams of two as they always had before when scouting something out, Rochelle with Coach, Nick with Ellis. It was one of the very few times the kid actually kept his mouth shut and Nick could focus on the task at hand instead of wanting to blow his eardrums out to avoid hearing another fucking Keith story.

    The room they checked had essentially been stripped down to its bones. The blankets from the bed were removed to expose a bare mattress, the drawers to the nightstands left roughly opened as if someone had searched them in a hurry, a lamp lay broken on the floor, and the long dead fridge had been stripped of its bottles of water. There was blood on the carpet, dried up droplets that led into the bathroom.

    Upon going inside Nick found himself looking at a scene that told its own story. Bloodied hands had gripped for the faucet in a desperate attempt to summon the water within the pipes but apparently coming up short. Water was one of the first things turned off when the infection hit, stories claiming that it was spread through the supply. Nick remembered how the stores looked, everyone rushing for the purified water in a blind panic, willing to hurt others who got in their way or steal the water right from their car. One man even got shot over it, he remembered.

    His eyes followed the trail of blood, a handprint left on the rim of the toilet next to him, the water inside turned a disturbing shade of crimson that should never be found inside the bowl. Nick’s face twisted slightly in disgust at the implication. Whoever this was, they were willing to risk infection from a dirty toilet in order to clean the blood off of themselves and Nick couldn’t help but wonder if they had gotten further than this.

    “Hey Nick, check this out,” Ellis’ voice rang out from the main room, Nick leaving the sickening scene behind him as he sauntered over to what Ellis was standing in front of.

    That look from earlier came back, when he was looking at the body in the corn field. There was a splatter of blood on the window, hidden behind the curtains that Ellis had pulled back. The glass was spider webbed, suggesting that something had been hit against it, the blood centering right in the middle of it. On the carpet below was a distinct blood stain, large enough to cover the area both Nick and Ellis were standing in.

    What disturbed Nick, though, was the lack of a body.

    “Ain’t no clots in this blood,” Ellis said lowly, his eyes fixed on the window.

    “What are you talking about?”

    “Every zombie we’ve blown the brains out of had gooey clots of blood splattered outta them, this blood ain’t clotted.”

    Nick looked closer at the window, taking a finger and scratching at the dried up substance that had caked itself against the glass. Ellis was right, there were no disgusting chunks of blackened ooze to be seen either here or on the carpet. The blood was clean and colored a healthy hue.

This didn’t belong to an infected.

    “I…” Nick hesitated, debating on keeping his discovery to himself, but the mechanic's eyes were on him now and he had nowhere to back away to. “I found a body in the corn fields. They’d been shot in the back of head, execution style. They weren’t infected either.”

    “S’at where you got the knife?” Ellis pointed to the weapon strapped against Nick’s thigh.

    “Yeah, poor schmuck was holding onto the thing for dear life.” Nick made his way out of the room, there was nothing else to find here. “Isn’t like they need it now.”

“Jesus, Nick…” Ellis groaned as he followed after the con-man.

“Am I wrong?”

“Well, no, but a little sensitivity never hurt.”

“Overalls, we’re in the middle of a fucking zombie apocalypse, sensitivity died out with the rest of society.”

Ellis said nothing else, just pulled his hat a little further down on his head and watched as Nick tested a door to another room. It was locked, the window blocked by sun soaked curtains that thwarted any chance of peaking inside. Before that would have been preferred, but now it only proved irritating.

    “You got a bobby pin?”

    “What for?”

    “I’m gonna put my hair up all nice,” Nick snapped. “I’m going pick the lock open, the fuck else?”

    “Why not just kick it open,” Ellis said, his voice laced with nearly as much venom as Nick’s.

    “Sure, and attract every goddamn zombie within a hundred feet, I’ll get right on that.”

    Both men glared at each other, Ellis’ arms crossed tightly over his chest and face twisted into something that resembled a pout. This man infuriated Nick at the best of times, what he said back in the other motel room was smart, something that Nick didn’t even notice. How was it that something like not kicking open a door a hard concept to grasp? It was common fucking sense.

“You got a pin or what?” he hissed, tired of the staring contest they were pulling off.

“No.” His answer was short and harsh, Nick only rolling his eyes as he pulled the knife out of the holster.

He stuck the tip between the door and the frame, twisting it to fit behind the latch bolt, grunting as he attempted to push it further, Ellis eventually losing the sour puss look on his face as he watched the survivor attempt to force his way into the room. There was a slight click from the door as Nick twisted the door knob, knuckles on that hand slowly turning white as his grip tightened. He swore at it as he twisted harder, threatening it with violence and something else Ellis couldn’t quick catch.

Finally, there was a harsh crack and a pained yelp from Nick as he recoiled from the door, hand now sliced open from the knife that had slipped out of the frame.

“Oh Jesus Christ, Nick,”

“ _Shut up_ , I’ve done this before!”

“Cut your goddamn hand open tryna open a locked door in the stupidest way I’ve ever seen?”

“You wanted to fucking kick it open!”

“Yeah, and that wouldn’t have left me with a bleedin’ hand!”

“Would have left you with a horde of zombies on your ass after you gave yourself away to every fucking mouthbreather within the tri-state area!”

“You keep yellin’ how you are and you’re just gonna do the same thing and imma leave your ass here to deal with it.”

“I’ll break your goddamn legs and let ‘em at you like ants to a corpse!”

Both men continued to argue in hypotheticals, Nick’s hand shaking as he clutched it against his shirt in an attempt to slow the bleeding. The longer the argument went on, the angier and louder Nick got, his voice at a near scream that boomed over Ellis’ own. He didn’t think about any infected that might hear them, the consequences in speaking in such a heightened tone.

“You worthless goddamn hick, every word out of your crooked fucking mouth makes me want to jump off every bridge we come across!”

At that Ellis froze, the color draining from his face so quickly Nick wondered if he was going to fall over then and there. His stare was focused past Nick’s head and before he could turn around, he felt something pressed against his back.

“Coach, I am _not_ in the mood for you to be touching me with random shit--”

_“Shut up,”_

Nick’s heart sunk right into his stomach at a voice that didn’t belong to their friend, his legs threatening to give out at the realization it was the barrel of a gun that was resting against his spine.   


	2. The Prisoner's Dilemma (Part 1)

“You getting cold feet, Nicholas?” His voice was like nails on a classroom chalkboard, stance like that of brute looming over his victim, or like a wild animal. The con-man was completely at his mercy, leg twisted painfully in an ungodly angle, trapped with his back to the pavement, the barrel of a gun pointed straight at his head.

He swallowed hard past the lump in his throat, his ears ringing and drowning out all the noise of America’s busiest city. All except for the grating voice that taunted him, the click of a hammer that threatened him. 

“Men like you are pathetic,” he spoke again, a horrible chill running up the length of Nick’s spine. “You con good, hard workin’ folk out of their money so you can walk away and live an easy life while they struggle. You murder and steal your way to the top while people like me have to  _ earn _ it and  _ work for it  _ our entire lives, and you think you can just get away with it?!” 

Despite the fear that clawed its way into Nick’s heart, he didn’t even flinch when the cop forced the gun closer into his face, the hammer cocked down completely. He only offered a harsh glare and a grin that painted clear just how much of a bastard he was.

“To be fair, if these dumbshits are stupid enough to gamble all of their money away, what difference does it make if  _ I’m _ the one--” 

His snark was cut off by the harsh bang of a gun, the bullet dug right into the ground just inches away from his head. The officer planted a boot on Nick’s chest and pressed down as he leaned in closer, the convict wheezing at the weight. 

“I can’t tell you how good it feels to see you squirm under my boot like the vermin you are.” he growled, his voice so low and dangerous it rattled Nick’s bones to the core. There was no sound around him now, only that baritone pitch that threatened shake him away into nothing. 

He stood tall again, removing his foot from Nick’s chest and placing it in the air just before Nick’s broken knee. He looked at the cop with fear in his eyes, a silent plea from parted lips. 

The pain that overtook him was white hot, coursing through his veins like acid as every nerve lit itself on fire. Nick’s screams only brought a smile to the twisted bastard’s face, enjoying how they intensified as his boot pressed harder against the bone. Then something popped and Nick could swear he blacked out for a second, brought back only by a pistol whip to the cheek. 

“This what you’re doing?” Nick panted, attempting to ignore the excruciating pain he felt in his leg. “Abusing your perps? Threatening them with violence and death?” 

“You’ve already gotten me kicked off the force, Nicky, I’ve got nothing left to lose.” The tone in his voice was pure evil, its soul soaked through with the dark intentions of a man drunk on insanity and rage. 

But even as a hand stronger than his gripped the collar of his suit, even as he was dragged clear across the parking lot to an alley where his pain would be unheard, and even as his entire body was being broken; 

He never once begged for his life.

* * *

 

“Put yer weapon down, nice and slow like.” the voice instructed, Nick forced to bend to a vulnerable position to place the knife down on the pavement, blood from his hand running down the length of his arm as he held his hands up in surrender. He offered Ellis a look of confidence as he stood straight again, the younger man’s eyes lit with fear.

“We don’t want any trouble,” Nick said calmly as the mysterious man behind him patted him down for any hidden heat. 

“Shoulda thought about that before tryin’ to break into a man’s home,” The voice was right in his ear now, hot and unpleasant against the skin. Nick’s face twisted at the contact. “Shoulda thought about it before you even got anywhere near my motel.” 

His voice was just barely short of an animalistic growl and Nick couldn’t turn his head enough to see if he in the process of becoming infected. Ellis was frozen with fear save for a slight tremble in his hands, that calming some when Nick offered him a reassuring look. 

“Didn’t look like anyone was home,” Nick started, carefully keeping himself still as if moving threatened to set off a bomb. “We got robbed and abandoned in the field over there,” 

“Oh I saw, y’all are lucky I didn’t have my rifle with me.” 

Ellis swallowed nervously and Nick let out a small huff of frustration. 

“Look, I already said we don’t want any trou--” the con-man’s words were cut short by the butt of a gun being forced hard against his head, stumbling onto fours and he tried to see past the stars in his eyes. Ellis had risked being shot to kneel down and try to get his friend back on his feet, the stranger looming over the both of them like a predator in waiting. 

“Ged’up and start walking,” he demanded, shoving that gun back against Nick’s spine once he finally stood straight. 

“Do what ya want to me, just let the kid go. He had nothing to do with this--” 

That gun went off now, a bullet finding its home in the back of Nick’s thigh. The gambler cried out in pain as his leg gave out, Ellis catching him before he took another fall to the pavement. The stranger behind them was snarling now, Nick imaging foam seeping from in between his teeth as he threatened the next bullet would go in Nick’s head if they didn’t move when told. 

They were led back to the room from before, both men pushed harshly inside as the door was slammed shut behind them. Ellis, over the sound of Nick’s pained groans, eventually heard something heavy slamming against the door, the darkened figure of the stranger passing by the window after the noise had stopped, something over than the gun in his hand. When he returned his attention to the other survivor, Nick was gripping the wound in his leg with the uninjured hand, blood soaking the white of his pant leg. His shoulders were heaving hard as he attempted to steady his breathing, eyes closed as he tried to focus on something other than the pain. 

It was slowly starting to pass, his thigh numbing to all sensation as he watched Ellis pace through the room. Eventually the southerner ripped the curtains down from the window the sunset shining directly into Nick’s eyes and causing the survivor squint and turn his face away. 

As amusing as it was to watch Ellis struggle to tear the cheap fabric into strips, Nick didn’t wasn’t fond of the idea to bleed more than he had to. He whistled to get the kid’s attention and held up the knife from before, Ellis raising a brow in confusion but with an impressed edge. 

“Snagged it back when he hit me with the gun, dumbass didn’t even notice.” Ellis grinned at Nick’s words and took the weapon handed to him and was careful to cut into the curtains to avoiding having to patch three wounds. 

He was impressed at how sharp it was, slicing effortlessly through the fabric like a hot knife through butter. Whoever owned this before Nick got his hands on it - pun slightly intended - must have taken good care of it. Though fat load of good it did them, a sharpened knife couldn’t stop speeding bullets apparently. 

After one side of the curtain had been cut into semi even strips, Ellis went on to search for something to act as a tourniquet. His eyes settled on the manhandled nightstand drawers from before, making his way over to them as Nick watched him curiously. The southerner forced the drawer out of the nightstand and let it drop to the ground and with a swift and harsh stomp, broke off several pieces that he then proceeded to compare. 

After coming up with one that he was satisfied with, he made his way back over to the downed survivor and sat himself in front of the injured leg. 

“Now, this might sting a bit,” he warned, grabbing the strips of fabric behind him. “You can cry, iffen ‘ya want to, I won’t tell nobody.” 

“Oh ha ha,” Nick sassed, not bothering to put up a fight as Ellis carefully grabbed his leg. There was no point in letting pride get in the way of needed medical attention, he wasn’t fond of the idea of bleeding to death on a dirty motel floor. 

Though this wasn’t the first time he’s come close to that. 

Instead, he sat patiently and still as Ellis placed the steady piece of broken wood against the back of Nick’s leg, tying it tight against his skin with the pieces of curtain. He couldn’t help but wince, the numbness giving way to an awful burning sensation that made him nearly want to cry out, intensified by the act of twisting the fabric tighter and tighter. He grunted lowly as Ellis finished it off with a knot and soon, he could barely feel anything past it.

Nick had to give it to the kid, though, it was quick thinking to use the already disgraced nightstand as pieces for a tourniquet. He even came up with it without scratching his chin for five minutes and looking like twit. Now both men just sat in the middle of a bloodied motel floor, waiting for whatever fate the stranger had in store for them. 

Nick’s hand had stopped bleeding at least, aside from a slight trickle from the deeper end of the wound. Ellis noticed his companion looking at it and grabbed another strip of cloth, carefully grabbing Nick’s wrist and pulling the hand towards him, carefully wrapping the cloth around the cut and tucking the access within the wrap to keep it fastened. Nick flexed his hand before laying it against his lap. 

Now, they just had to find a way out without alerting the man outside. Breaking the window was out of the question, he’d be on them quicker than they could climb out and they’d both end up like the guy in the cornfield. Ellis was searching around the room before Nick could even stand up, the southerner overturning everything he could. It took a moment for Nick to able to stand steadily on his feet, one leg made completely numb from the tourniquet while the other just felt like jello. His own weight threatened to take him down before he was able to gain control again, taking a breath before trying to actually walk. 

It wasn’t as bad as he was expecting it to be, most of the weight was being put on the uninjured leg and he wobbled around like a newborn fawn, but at least he wasn’t tumbling unceremoniously to the floor. Eventually he aided the younger man in his search, attempting to find the latch that went with the window. 

The latch that was broken off and now impossible to open. Of course. 

He swore lowly to himself, damning the stranger and damning this shitty motel, especially the soldiers that left them here. None of them were even sure where exactly here  _ was _ . Coach had said it was somewhere outside of New Orleans but without any landmarks for miles or access to a map, he couldn’t be certain. The concept of being stranded in the middle of nowhere with no discernible sign of civilization for god knows how long left Nick with a feeling of dread and anger that settled right in his chest. 

There was no way in hell he was going to die in the sticks,  _ especially _ not to some crazed old fuck with an itchy trigger finger. 

Eventually, Nick moved on from the window, pulling the last of the curtain over the glass that wasn’t stained in an attempt to hide what they were doing should the stranger look in. He went back to the bathroom, wincing at the smell he missed before. Something he didn’t notice last time was that the mirror was broken, pieces of glass fallen into the sink while the rest spiderwebbed across the canvas. Nick stole a look at himself and didn’t like what he saw. 

The bags under his eyes were awful. Dark and blatantly unpleasant to view while the rest of his face seemed to be covered in a layer of dirt that would take hot water, soap, and a hell of a lot of elbow grease to remove. None of those things being readily available within the immediate future. One eye was still purple and yellow from the chunk of rock he took to the face while running across the bridge to the military plane. Tanks were more accurate with those boulders than any of them were with a gun. 

There was a still healing cut that spanned over his mouth, not deep enough to cause a scar, which he was grateful for. Bruising on his cheek and neck were the last notable sights of his sorry appearance, the rest of him just as beat up and dirty as his face. His suit’s seen better days, covered in shit and blood and mud and stained with bile with tears along the arms and end of his jacket. The shirt was opened further along the chest, a button being forcibly removed by an infected that got too close to his neck for comfort. 

His hair was overgrown and shaggy, attempting to matt in several places but desperate pulls of his fingers had attempted to prevent that. His beard had grown to lengths more than he was comfortably able to tolerate and he could see gray beginning to form at his temples. Nick barely even recognized himself, the man staring back at him in the broken mirror did not feel like him.

He was a mess, plain and simple. This apocalypse had taken his best qualities and ran them through the mud, face down, and with a mouth full of shit. 

Ellis looked no better, now that he thought about it. His hat was struggling to contain his outgrown hair, curls peeking out from the rim and casting shadows over his eyes. His beard was grown out almost as much as Nick’s, his face was skinnier than it was when they first met, cheeks hollowing from more than one night gone hungry. Along his features were small cuts, bruises, and scars, his eyes sunken and dark, bags portraying his exhaustion just as Nick’s did. His ‘clever’ Bullshifter’s shirt had been washed out into a sickly tan instead of its original yellow, bloodstains ruining the fabric. At least the beard made him look older.

He eventually had to ditch his iconic overalls after they had been nearly ripped to shreds, following an unfortunate encounter with a fence baring barbed wire. Instead, he wore faded jeans that they had picked up from a long abandoned clothing store. They had gained quite a few holes in the passing months, the skin exposed scabbed and rough from being thrown around. 

Not to mention how filthy he was. Nick felt his skin crawl just looking at him, despite the fact that he had no room to talk.  

Wind was starting to pick up outside, Nick dreading the possible implication of a storm brewing as the last thing they needed at the moment was harsh weather to make travel even more difficult. Ellis had gone out of his view, no doubt back within the main room. After another moment of staring at himself in the pathetic mirror, Nick left the bathroom again to see Ellis picking at the broken window latch. 

“You’re not going to get very far,” 

“I can try,” 

Nick shrugged and looked around him, scanning absolutely everything he could see in the growing darkness. Including the chipped paint on the walls, the water damage stains on the ceiling, but coming up short of anything that would be useful. This room had been stripped down to its bare bones and something told the con-man that they and whoever that blood belonged to weren’t the first to call this room their final resting place. 

Giving up wasn’t an option, however. Nick refused to die trapped in a box like an animal, and certainly not to a gap toothed hillbilly. The only thing they could do was wait it out for the stranger to come back and try to devise a plan to gain the upper hand and disarm him. Ellis wouldn’t work, his loud mouth and dreadful stories would get him shot immediately and even if Nick felt that was deserved sometimes, he wasn’t about to have his fate be turned over to a redneck worse than him. Not after all he’d been through. 

The knife was still in his possession, Nick wondering if the stranger had noticed it was gone from the ground and anticipated them having it. Throwing it as soon as he entered the room might work, given Nick could actually land it in a spot that would incapacitate him rather than just anger him more. He wasn’t fond of the idea of taking another bullet for a miss-throw. 

He could fake like he was in an immeasurable amount of pain, leaning against the window with a sour look on his face as he kept watch for the man to come back and having Ellis jump him. That plan seemed to go well over Nick’s head. He’d give the knife to Ellis, tell him to wait in the corner by where the door opens, and as soon as he came in, Ellis would stab him and Nick would grab the gun before he had a chance to fire it off. 

Then it was a matter of turning his weapon straight back at him, and Nick would demand supplies, guns, and ammo before they went on their merry way. A grin formed across his lips, liking the way the odds played out in their favor for once. Unless this asshole was a tank in disguise, a man of his age wouldn’t be able to take on two men considerably younger than he was. 

When Nick let Ellis in on the plan, his eyes lit up like a fire, something he hadn’t seen since they walked into Whitaker’s gun store over half a year prior. It was a chance to be ‘total badasses’ as he said, and Nick couldn’t help but silently agree. If they managed to pull this off, it’d definitely be something to be proud of. 

Now, it was a matter of waiting to put their plan into action. Nick wasn’t sure how long the old man would take before deciding the two men overstayed their welcome, but he was hoping it was soon. The sun had nearly disappeared behind the horizon and the past forty-eight hours were slowly catching up to the gambler. 

He leaned against the window and kept his eyes focused outside, waiting for the silhouette to appear and also, in the back of his head, hoping he’d see even a peak of color behind those gray and awful clouds. He knew there would be nothing, though, as it had been every night for nearly seven months. It was like the world knew that it was dying and the weather played along accordingly to that. 

Nick sighed, struggling to keep his eyes opened as he stood watch for their potential murderer. The wind was stronger now, the sky above threatening to break open into an overwhelming shower, the survivor scrunching up his face at the sight of the first droplet against the glass. He’d been sick of the rain ever since their adventure at the sugarmill. 

He almost visibly shuddered at the memory. 

“Whatchu thinkin’ about, Nick?” Ellis asked from his corner, knife held lazily in his left hand. 

“Nothing,” Nick answered shortly, not in any particular mood to talk about  _ feelings _ or thoughts and hoping it would be left there.

“That broodin’ face don’t look like nothin’.” Unfortunately, Ellis wasn’t very skilled in taking ques.

Nick just stared at the mechanic, his eyes drooping slightly as a sudden wave of almost painful exhaustion washed over him. He was too tired to argue, too tired to go back and forth to tell Ellis to leave him alone only for the younger man to take it as an invitation to try harder. That infuriated Nick more than his goddamn stories that, annoyingly, related to any situation they found themselves in. 

It wouldn’t surprise him if the hick had a story up his ass about being trapped in a room with  _ his buddy Keith _ while they waited for impending doom by the hands of a goddamn redneck. What was most annoying was the way Ellis was looking at him right now, like he  _ knew _ he was going to get an answer one way or another. 

Smug little asshole. 

Nick decided to just be honest and tell him, if only to avoid spending more energy he didn’t have to tell him to fuck off twenty times. 

“As stupid as it sounds, all I want anymore is just to see a sunset again.” 

Ellis seemed almost shocked by the man’s words, eyes opened slightly wider than they were before and his lips had parted a little. He had been expecting an argument, something he was used to with Nick, not brutal honesty. 

Almost as soon as it appeared, however, that look of shock turned into a tired smile.

“It ain’t stupid, all we’ve seen the past couple months has been overcast with  _ some  _ sunshine.” He brought his knees up closer to his chest, arms resting on his knees. “I mean, I reckon I wouldn’t mind seein’ one either. Be a nice change from the doom and gloom.” 

Nick hummed in response, turning his head back towards the window. More droplets had fallen against the glass now and he could tell the wind was starting to become vicious, as the trees and the cornfield felt its wrath. The clouds looked menacing, even moreso than usual and Nick was getting unpleasant flashbacks to the sugarmill again.The storm then was terrifying, threatening to rip the survivors away from each other if they didn’t stay right against one another, the shrilling sound of witches screaming as the thunder boomed overhead.

It left Nick with more than a few miserable dreams, to say the least.

He saw something move and opened his mouth to say something when the wind outside reached its maximum rage, howling sharply as the air cut against the corners of the building. Nick could barely hear himself think over the sound, finding himself unable to focus past the whistling he heard in the room. 

“Wait a minute,” 

Nick pushed himself off the window and followed the source of the sound, Ellis giving him a curious look as he crossed the room. It became louder in the corner with the bookcase, Nick pulling off the dusty and forgotten books - and based on just  _ how _ dusty they were, he assumed that they were abandoned long before the infection started - before pushing the shelf aside. When he looked up, it was like he met the gates of heaven. 

“A fuckin’ vent!” Nick laughed with excitement, barely able to contain himself at the concept of getting out of this box. “This has to lead into the other room, you hear the whistling?” 

Ellis nodded, the mechanic having made his way over here at his friend’s shouting. 

“Window’s gotta be open or broken or something for the wind to be coming through, so if we get through here and into the other room, we can climb out through the window and find the others.” Nick pushed the bookshelf further away from the vent, asking for Ellis’ help as he attempted to move the bed under their escape line. 

Though as they moved the frame away from its original spot, both men found something that made them feel sick to their stomach. 

Nick knew now, at least, the origin of the bloodstain on the carpet, and the decaying flesh of what was once a human solved his earlier curiosity of why a body was missing from the stain. It had to have been here for weeks, maggots already writhing within the skin as their permanent expression of agony had given away mostly to bone. 

Ellis had let go of his hold of the bed in his shock, stumbling away and gagging as the sight disturbed the eyes and the senses. They hadn’t smelt anything more offensive than usual, likely because they had gotten so accustomed to death and decay over the course of seven months that they simply had just become used to the smell. 

The thought had disturbed Nick more than he thought it would. 

“I know it’s grim but we need to keep moving. I don’t want that asshole to come back and see we found a hole in his plan.” Though his words did nothing to pry Ellis’ horrified gaze of the rotten and bloated corpse. He snapped in the younger man’s face, shaking him back into a sense of awareness again. 

“Hey, c’mon!” 

“I’m sorry… I just…” He stopped again, forcing himself to look at the bed rather than the body. It was something they should have been used to, considering all of the zombies they’ve killed, along with the bodies of shot survivors by both CEDA and the Military. Though they weren’t desensitized to it as they should have been, there was always going to be something jarring about seeing the rotting body of something that used to be human. 

Especially if you were uncomfortably close to unknowingly sharing a final resting place with it. 

“I know, Ellis,” Nick tried a softer approach now, the other man looking up to him at the unusual tone. “But we can either stand here and share the same fate, or we could drag this bed over to the vent and get the hell out of this room.”

This seemed to finally convince him to pick up his end again, both men grunting as they dragged the queen bed under the vent. Nick took the knife and went to work - carefully, this time - unscrewing the bolts with the tip, Ellis keeping watch for any signs of an approaching shadow. It was difficult to force his eyes away from the body, and the image of maggots writhing in the eye sockets was something that was going to haunt his dreams, along with everything else.

The older man hummed with satisfaction as he was able to pull the cover of the vent off, letting it fall soundlessly to the mattress. He went up first, Ellis having to be careful of his injured leg as he boosted the man in the confining metal space. He was surprised at how well the mechanic managed to get up relatively on his own, both men having to squeeze closer together than Nick would have liked. 

Dust assaulted Nick’s nose and it took every ounce of his self control to force away the sneeze building up in his sinuses. Though it would be a funny story to tell later, Nick giving away their escape due to allergies and found practically on top of each other in a small metal rectangle. Well, it’d be funny assuming they survived the ordeal. 

Despite it being a good plan, Nick wasn’t fond of being so confined, especially with someone else pressed so close to him. Thinking about it made his heart speed up, but he chalked it down to the blood he’s lost and nothing more. He couldn’t ignore the feeling of relief as they forced the other side of the vent open and climbed their way out, though. He was also right about the window, a large hole broken in the glass as if something was thrown through it, and upon inspection of the room, Ellis found the culprit to be the severed head of an infected.

“That just ain’t right,” he complained, making a twisted up face at it. 

“Come on, we need to find the others,” 

When Nick opened the door, both were greeted to the sight of pouring rain, falling almost sideways as a storm appeared seemingly out of nowhere. The wind threatened to knock them both over and Nick could barely stand on his injured leg. After a stronger gust had nearly knocked him on his ass, Ellis took it upon himself to be the gambler’s anchor. Now that he wasn’t limping on the bad leg, Nick found it much easier to move, much to the dismay of his pride. 

Both hobbled their way to the direction Rochelle and Coach had gone, which was opposite of them. They looked through every window they passed by and tried every door but had no luck on the ground floor, and while Nick groaned at the concept of stairs, he knew there was no avoiding it. He’d rather not wait down here while Ellis went up and risk the chance of encountering a psycho, gun toting hillbilly on his own. Instead, they painstakingly climbed up each step one by one, Nick growling with pain and irritation at each hop he pulled. 

Once at the top they continued their way down the ‘hall’, every window remaining empty save for a few more rotting bodies. Ellis couldn’t help but wonder, out loud, if the stranger had been responsible for all of this, for if some were just unfortunate enough to succumb to the infected. Though one room told a different story, of a body limp on the ground with a gun clutched tight in its grasp and a blood splatter next to - what was assumed as - its head. The TV was on, nothing but black and white static that illuminated the body rotten into the floor. An unfortunate shade of brown had stained the carpet around where the flesh decayed and based on how long gone it was, Nick assumed they had killed themselves off right when the infection started. 

It looked like a scene straight out of The Shining and Nick had no desire to stick around and smell the oranges.  

Every other room held no sign of their missing friends and Nick was ready to express his doubt they were even still here before he heard a harsh pounding over the storm and Coach’s angry voice booming from behind a door.

“You ugly son of a bitch, when I get outta here-- Man, you better hope I don’t get out of here!” 

Their situation was much like Nick and Ellis’, door kept closed by a thick board hammered across the door frame, Coach unable to force his weight against it hard enough to break. The linebacker snarled threats through bare teeth as he continued to try and force his way out, his anger able to rival the storm. 

“Keep doin’ that and you’re gonna bring ‘em right back to you!” Nick called out, the slamming stopping almost immediately.

“Nicholas? Is that you?” Coach called in response.

“Last time I checked,” he said and gave himself a once over for the humor of it despite Coach not being able to see. Ellis laughed a little though, so the attempt wasn’t wasted at least. “You guys hurt?” 

“He whacked me pretty good when I tried to reason with him,” Rochelle answered, Nick suddenly feeling very angry again. “What about you boys? I’m hoping Ellis is with you,” 

“Yessum I’m here! Nick got shot in the leg when he tried to reason with ‘em too!” Ellis confirmed, Nick silently grateful that he conveniently left out the part where he slit his hand open trying to open a locked door. “I’m fine past bein’ a little shaken. What about you Coach?” 

“Oh I’ll be better when I ring my hands around that bastard’s throat! Any chance y’all can get us out of this?” 

“I love the enthusiasm of trying to use your body as a battering ram to bring the door down, but why not just break the window?” Nick asked, tone conveying that he wasn’t impressed. 

“Boarded up from the inside, you jackass!” Coach was equally unimpressed and Nick had to squint to see the distinct patterning of wood past the darkness and realize that those weren’t curtains blocking the view. 

“In my defense, I can’t see shit.” 

Nick heard Coach hum behind the door and his will to force an arm through the door and strangle him was practically overwhelming. It was doubled when he made a smart comment about Nick needing glasses. 

“Alright, you know what--” 

“Y’all can we do this later when there  _ ain’t _ some crazy guy wanting to make us into a rug?” Ellis cut Nick off with a fierceness in his voice that the older man wasn’t used to, Nick staring at him in a bit of a shock.

“I agree with Ellis!” said Rochelle.

“Aight now y’all are gonna wanna look along the wall for a vent, that’s how we got out,” 

They heard shuffling inside, along with mumbling as the survivors communicated on where they’ve looked and come up short. After what seemed like an eternity, Rochelle called out that they had found it in a darkened corner of the room, access to it available via a dresser. 

“Try to get that cover off ‘n crawl your way to the other room,” 

“You really think I’m gonna fit through that shit?” Coach snapped. 

“You’re gonna have to try or you’re gonna be stuck in there for a while!” There was a taunt in Nick’s words, one that wasn’t appreciated by rest of them but he grinned nonetheless. 

However, the grin quickly left his features and was replaced by a look of focus, mentioning that they would need to find something to undo the screws that held the vent closed. He was surprised when Rochelle called out that it came right off, she then asked Coach to give her a boost up. It was silent for a while, both Ellis and Nick becoming soaked through their clothes as the storm blew in sideways so the awning overhead offered no shelter. Eventually they heard a harsh clang and then a drop in the opposite room, the click of a lock being undone, and soon Rochelle appeared before the boys outside in the storm.

“Okay, I barely got through there without getting stuck, we’re going to need to find something to pry this board off the door for Coach,” She then thought for a second before her face twisted to something melancholy. “Sorry, Coach!” 

“You ain’t tellin’ me something I don’t already know, little sister, it’s all good. Just don’t leave me in here long!” 

With that, the three began their search for whatever they could find to free their self-appointed leader - preferably a crowbar - and began their search in the rooms adjacent. 


	3. The Prisoner's Dilemma (Part 2)

Nick thought back to the room they tried to break in earlier, wondering what could be inside that lead to a gun being pressed against his back. It had to have been something valuable like guns or food, or maybe even both. While a part of him felt it was wrong to want to take from someone else, this someone was also planning to kill him and the others. It lead the gambler to believe that he was responsible for the body in the motel room he and Ellis were locked in, along with the body of the person in the cornfield. 

While he couldn’t be sure it was him, the body in the field and under the bed were just a little too ‘fresh’ to consider anything else. Besides, zombies don’t cause bullet holes. 

The three of them decided against splitting up, as the decision to in the first place was what landed them in their original position, and why Coach was locked in a room by himself. While searching each individual room was tedious and coming up short each time slowly became infuriating, the option of leaving Coach behind was unacceptable. Even if Nick suggested it as a joke and was met only with icy glares. 

They had come across another locked room with curtains drawn to block the view inside and before Nick could even open his mouth, Ellis had kicked the door open, using the boom of thunder as his cover. While Nick was impressed with the timing, he couldn’t help but feel that wasn’t intentional. 

The room was clean - as far as roadside motels go, anyway - and relatively undisturbed aside from the bed being a bit tossed with an open and empty suitcase sitting on top.

“Check everything, this room looks like it hasn’t been touched.” Nick instructed, Ellis removing himself from under Nick’s arm to do as told. While the pain was beginning to creep back through his leg, Nick had to push it aside to focus on the task at hand. 

Searching through the drawers of the nightstands proved fruitless, the only thing found being a bible that looked like it hadn’t been touched in years and the menu of every food stop within a fifteen mile radius. Which was about six. He couldn’t help but wonder just how the fuck people managed to live out here, and  _ why _ . The closest superstore was twenty minutes away, any kind of medical facility forty, and you were left waiting an hour and a half for a goddamn pizza. He was forced to stay in the middle of the sticks once before and he promised himself never again, yet here he was.

Though, he supposed he never accounted for a zombie apocalypse.

Rochelle checked the fridge and found three of those bottles of water you had to pay an arm and a leg for and tossed one to both Nick and Ellis before opening one herself. Ellis practically downed the entire bottle right then and there while Nick took about half. He didn’t realize how thirsty he actually was until he had the option of quenching it. Rochelle took just less than half and stuffed all three bottles into a backpack she found in the corner. While both Nick and Ellis could do for a little more, they knew they had to save some for Coach.  

Ellis looked in the bathroom, noticing the complimentary bars of soap and mini bottles of shampoo and conditioner were left unused and in their original packaging. He shrugged and picked them up, waving Rochelle over to stick them into one of the pockets of the pack. While it wasn’t what they were looking for, hygiene was just as important as the rest. 

There was nothing under the sick aside from its piping so thinking his search through the bathroom was concluded, he turned and began his way out. Stopping only when he heard the buzzing of flies. 

It sounded as if they were coming from inside the shower so he pulled the curtain back and got more than he bargained for. The body of a man in a white lab coat with a bullet hole in his head. His badge was smeared with blood but Ellis could see past the stain, the man was a doctor. 

“Hey y’all, come check this out,” 

Rochelle’s face immediately went grim at the sight while Nick seemed less emotional, a raised brow being the only difference on his otherwise stone like look. 

“Look like he put up a fight,” Nick pointed out. “There’s bruising on his hands and face. Was likely here to try and help anyone sick or injured.” 

“And they just snuffed ‘em out right here…” Ellis’ voice was low, dark, as if he wasn’t surprised that someone would do this to someone with kindness still in their heart.

“He didn’t die here, though,” said Nick. “There’s no blood, his body was dumped here.” 

“But why? Why leave a body here but not bother trying to find supplies within the room?” Rochelle seemed more upset than confused, Nick offering her a bit of a softer look. 

“Dunno, but if it was the psychopath that’s threatening our lives that did this, something tells me supplies are the last thing on his mind.” 

Nick decided to step in and run his fingers down the doctor’s eyes to close them fully before drawing the curtain back over him, mentioning lowly that they should move on.

The next few rooms proved to be empty and useless, save for a few more hygiene products they stashed into the bookbag. For once, Nick was thankful that no one seemed to give a shit about personal hygiene because that meant he was one step closer to washing this layer of grime off himself, even if he had to shower in the rain to do so. 

Each room was the same, some made up more than the others, same things in the bathroom, bed tossed, maybe some blood on the floor with no body to match to it or the trail led on somewhere else. Through all the rooms they searched, they had no luck finding anything strong enough to free their companion upstairs, and Nick had a feeling the man was likely becoming restless. He could only hope he wouldn’t do anything reckless and stupid. 

They went to the ground floor again to search the remaining rooms Rochelle saying that someone should keep watch outside should a certain someone decide to try and pay them a visit. No doubt he’s noticed that Nick and Ellis had escaped their prison and would be on the path for blood. They took turns standing guard, rotating between each room and searching quickly as they knew they were running out of time. The whole thing was proving to be infuriating and Nick wanted nothing more than to burn the entire place to the ground. 

Ellis was - supposed to be - standing watch outside while Nick and Rochelle searched another room, but their work was put to a halt when they heard Ellis call for them from outside. Nick’s first thought was that it was going to be the stranger, knife armed in hand for the fight that awaited him past that door. Instead, they were greeted by Ellis hovering over a car abandoned in the parking lot.

“A car, yippie.”

“Not just any car, the keys are sittin’ purdy right on the driver seat, the only problem is that the door is locked,” Ellis explained, pressing his face and hands up against the glass. 

“That and it’s likely one, out of gas, and two, dead.” Nick continued to battle the excitement, he’s learned not to get his hopes up over the last few months, seeing how every time he did, the world just seemed fit to shit on him and him alone. 

“Nah, see that blinkin’ red light in there? Mean’s there’s an electric security system. Wouldn’t be blinkin’ if the battery was gone.” 

“It’s not going to have enough gas. Because nothing  _ ever _ has enough gas.” Nick crossed his arms over his chest now, still unimpressed by Ellis’ discovery.

“Won’t know ‘till we can get it turned on. For now we should probably get back to focusin’ on how to get Coach outta the room.” 

And so they did, the survivors returning to the motel rooms to continue their tedious search, each of them slowly getting tired of repetitiveness of it and coming up short each time.

While Nick stood watch outside in case the stranger decided to circle his way back around, he noticed that a particular door was opened at the end of the hall. Specifically, the one he sliced his hand open trying to force. He made mention to Rochelle - who was standing near the door frame - that he was going to check something out before limping his way down to the point of interest. It was practically pitch black now, Nick barely able to see anything three feet ahead. His destination had light coming from it, however, likely one of those camping lanterns that run on a battery. It served to assure his thoughts that something was in that room worth protecting, hoping that there was a gun or hell, even some bandages for the wound on his leg.

The storm howled loud in his ears, making trying to listen for footsteps behind him difficult. Hairs on the back of his neck were sticking straight up and there was a growing sense of dread the closer he came to the door. There wasn’t anything worse he could see that he hadn’t already in this house of nightmares, nothing could shake him harder than what he’s already seen during the months they’ve been traversing through Hell. Though his gut was telling him otherwise, despite him telling it it was wrong. 

But God, did he wish it was wrong. 

The con-man, normally tough and unmoving, let out a pathetic whine at the scene laid before him behind the door of the once locked room. While the smell assaulted his nose past what he was used to, it was the image of what he saw that he’d never be able to scrub from the back of his mind. It would show every time he closed his eyes, reminding him just how far gone humanity had really gotten. 

Bile rose to the back of his throat, his legs threatening to give out in pure shock and horror. The bodies of four children were stacked into a pile on top of one another, their round faces twisted in an eternal sense of agony. Heads were beaten in, faces bloody, and limbs bent in impossible ways. A mix of sadness and pure anger nearly overwhelmed him and his body reacted immediately to the sound of someone approaching him from behind. 

It was Rochelle, face conveying her horror at the scene before them, hands shaking as they were put to her mouth. A quiet and and trembling ‘oh my god’ sounded from her as her eyes welled with tears, backing away slowly despite not being able to tear her gaze away from what was so terrible. Nick gently grabbed her shoulders and brought her out of the room, the woman nearly paralyzed as her mind played the scene over and over again. Ellis’ voice came down the hall, wondering what had happened to make their friend so spooked.

Nick tried blocking the southerner from going in, telling him, firmly, that he  _ didn’t _ want to see what was in there. Ellis refused to listen, however, one of his most infuriating traits being that he didn’t give up even if it was in his best interest to. He pushed Nick aside and went in, the gambler pinching the bridge of his nose and cursing Ellis silently in his head. 

It took the mechanic a moment to figure out just what the hell he was seeing and when he  _ did _ realize, his emotions skipped right past sadness and went right to a seething rage that boiled his blood. Nick could feel the tension of it and it shocked him, he had never seen or felt something like that from the younger man before, and he wasn’t sure he liked it.

“Do you like my handiwork?” A haunting voice sounded behind them, the figure of the stranger stood right in front of Rochelle who had been too horrified to make a sound of warning. “Kids are… they’re our future, a future filled with nothing but infection and disease. I did us all a favor, this world can die because of me.” 

The way Ellis turned looked as if he just walked straight out of a horror movie, lips curled in a snarl and a growl that threatened to turn feral. Nick’s eyes jumped between the two men, the tension so tight that it threatened to snap at a breath. 

And it did in the form of Ellis screaming in rage, lunging himself at the stranger and forcing a fist hard into his jaw. Something had cracked and neither Rochelle or Nick knew if it was a finger on Ellis’ hand breaking or the stranger’s jaw. 

“They were just kids you sick son of a bitch!” the southerner howled, unleashing his fury on the old man. In the scuffle Ellis had caused the stranger to lose his gun, the piece tumbling unceremoniously to the ground. Nick went for it, limping heavily and grunting in his struggle to bend and grab the weapon. He called for Ellis to move but his words fell on ears deafened by the lust for battle. 

Above them, Nick heard a harsh crash, like a charger slamming itself into a wall, along with the sound of something breaking. He couldn’t get proper aim on the stranger, his finger going to squeeze the trigger and having to stop himself as soon as Ellis got into the way. The southerner let out all of his pent up anger and rage on their potential murderer, snarling and growling in a way Nick had never seen before. It’d be frightening, were Nick an easy man to scare. 

The sick bastard only had a predator’s grin as he took the hits piled onto him by the younger man, fighting back only when he had an opening. The other two were powerless to help, Nick not wanting to shoot  _ through _ Ellis to stop the stranger, despite the fact the thought had crossed his mind if only for a moment.  

Above them, shrugging off a now sore and stiff shoulder, Coach saw the scene before him just below the railing. Ellis was fighting the bastard that hit Rochelle and locked her and Coach in that room, Nick trying to aim with a gun but falling short of the target due to the movement of the fight, and Rochelle’s eyes holding a horror seen that Coach didn’t want to know about. 

After a quick run down the stairs and to the others Coach’s presence was met with a look of surprise and shock from both Nick and Rochelle, Ellis being too occupied with trying to bash the stranger’s face in to noticed him there. Nick told Coach they had found a car that  _ might _ work and that he and Rochelle needed to get to it to see if it would start. Coach agreed and grabbed the still slightly shell shocked woman carefully by the arm and asking her where the car was. When the both of them quickly went to where it was seen, Nick returned his attention to the fight. 

Only to see the stranger ready to thrust a knife into his attacker. 

Nick lined up the perfect shot, squeezed the trigger and pulled, only to find the clip was empty. Fucker only had one bullet and used it on Nick’s leg.

“Son of a bitch!” the con-man snarled, tossing the gun aside and making a break for it. He pushed himself in between the stranger and Ellis, feeling something sharp forced directly into his abdomen. He grunted at the pain, white hot and clawing through his skin like a bad infection, only crying out when the stranger twisted the blade and pulled it out. He knew he’d be bleeding, he could already feel it soaking his shirt, but he still grabbed the other man’s wrist and kept it away from him enough where he could turn his head to face his friend. 

“Get to the car and get it started!” Ellis only stood there in horror, eyes trailing the blood as it dripped to the ground into a small pool. “ _ GO!!”  _

He ran like someone had fired off a gun at him, nearly tripping over uneven pavement as he waved his arms in a frantic attempt to get the others’ attention. When Nick returned to his attacker, the man had a sick grin splitting his lips that almost looked painted on. There was a madness in his eyes that Nick couldn’t describe, one that only grew in excitement as he too noticed the blood drip from Nick’s body. 

The stranger rushed him, howling out a piercing screech that threatened to tear his vocal cords, carelessly slashing that knife too close to the gambler’s face. Nick had to ignore the searing pain in his gut to avoid a repeat, stepping backwards closer and closer towards the motel as a blade moved side to side between his eyes. 

He put his arm up past the blade, the stranger’s colliding with his as Nick reached for the weapon, only to be met with a strong backhand. As he stumbled back the stranger rushed him again, this time forcing his entire body weight against his opponent as he slammed him against the wall. Stunned by the tackle, Nick felt the locks of his hair grabbed by the root, ringing sounding in his ears as his head was bashed into the window.

The first time he barely felt it. The second time sent his head spinning, the third had started the ringing, and by the fourth and fifth his vision was starting to blur. By the sixth he was seeing stars and his legs gave out from under him, tumbling to the ground with no grace and no way to fight off the hand that grabbed his collar. 

There was a sick irony to this, the feeling of deja vu swimming around in his head along with the stars. He had been dragged back into the room, harshly thrown to the floor with his head bouncing hard against the carpet.

A low and steady groan escaped from his throat as he attempted to right himself, seeing double as the stranger stood proudly over his victory. It was only as he was stabbed again that his vision darkened, his cries of pain and agony seeming to please the sick fuck hell bent on torturing Nick rather than just killing him. As the knife was pulled from his flesh again blood had forced its way out of Nick’s mouth in an unflattering cough. 

“Why…?” the survivor rasped, his voice failing him.

“Oh, I’ll tell you why,” the stranger purred in a disturbing voice, sounding almost possessed as he circled around Nick like a predator ready to descend. “Survival of the fittest. The others were weak,  _ small _ , couldn’t survive without one another while  _ I _ was fine on my own! I could take anything, I was indestructible!

‘The hunters!’ they cried, ‘The smokers!’, as if I would ever need anyone else to save me from such weak minded creatures. If you stay out of their sight, they never even know you’re there.” 

Nick’s eyes went from the stranger’s face to the knife he picked up earlier, fallen out of its holster when he was thrown to the floor. As the madman ranted, Nick slowly crept his hand over to the weapon, stopping when eyes were on him and continuing when they weren’t. 

His pinky had just barely touched the hilt before the other knife was stabbed straight through the back of his hand, the con-man screaming this time as a foot crushed his fingers.

“To think I’d ever need them! To think anyone would ever need anybody!” He had grabbed Nick’s collar now and pulled him up to meet his face, his voice risen to a shout as hot breath and spit flew onto the other man’s skin. “They’re all the same! Even now your  _ ‘friends’ _ are leaving you here, left to bleed out and suffer while they get away! No matter how loud you  _ cry _ ,” 

The stranger twisted the blade again, digging deeper through Nick’s hand and laughing louder than Nick was screaming. A hand soon covered Nick’s mouth, collar let go, head being pushed harder against the floor, sharp nails digging into his cheek. In the midst of his agony, Nick noticed something on his attacker’s hip. An alcohol soaked rag dangling from the open mouth of a bottle, its flammable contents inside swishing in a mesmerizing movement. 

He thought to the lighter in his pocket, sitting unused for the better half of three months as he hadn’t seen or held a cigarette since then. To the dry carpet beneath him, the ratty curtains covering the window, the bed that had sat in the sun for too many months, unused, untouched. He saw the fire blaze in his eyes. 

“Beg for your life, you little worm, beg for me to end it!” the stranger laughed, digging the knife deeper. Despite the pain and the feeling of darkness looming over him, Nick wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of hearing him beg. He would give  _ no _ one that satisfaction. He could be shot, he could be stabbed, he could have every bone in his body broken, 

But he would still  _ never _ beg.

“Why use the help of anyone else when you’re the only person you can rely on! All the supplies to myself, all the land to myself, all the guns to  _ me _ and  _ me _ alone! And once I’m done gutting you like a trout, I’m gonna slit that pretty little neck of your lady friend’s and--” 

The twisting and shoving stopped at the ear splitting sound of a car alarm, an engine struggling to start as whoever was behind the wheel attempted to turn it. After a moment, there was a harsh and devastating cry that was all too familiar to even Nick’s ringing ears. 

They weren’t as alone as they thought. 

“You stay right here,” the stranger snarled, grabbing an unused clip from his back pocket as he made his way out of the room and towards the gun discarded on the ground a few feet ahead. 

Deciding to regret his decisions later, Nick turned to pull the knife out of his hand, grunting and cursing as he forced himself to lunge forward and slash at the stranger. The man’s scream rang over the sound of the alarm as he collapsed, blood pooling from his severed achilles heel, wailing as his hands clutched at the wound. 

Nick continued to push himself, forcing himself to stand as he hobbled over and reached down to grab the bottle from the stranger’s waist. At the flick of his lighter the older man looked up, dirty face illuminated by the flames as they leapt up the rag.

“Fry, you sick son of a bitch.” 

Nick couldn’t describe the sound the stranger made as flames covered his body, broken glass forced into his eye from the impact of the bottle being thrown right at his head. He stood and watched the bastard writhe and scream as his flesh was being burned from his bones, turning only when he heard the sound of the car alarm stop and an engine rev. 

He closed the door to the room behind him, limping away as the flames rose and consumed all in its path. The car, being driven by Coach, had stopped just short of running Nick down, Ellis nearly jumping out of the backseat and towards his bleeding friend. Once he was close enough, Nick practically collapsed onto the southerner, Ellis nearly losing his footing at the sudden weight placed onto his own. 

The zombies were coming for them now, running at full speed with foam seeping from their mouths, eyes hungry and teeth ready to shred. Ellis struggled to pull the near-limp-Nicholas to the car, nearly throwing him and himself into the car as he shouted at Coach to floor it before the door was even closed. One zombie bit the end of the bumper as it fell forward, the others roaring and howling as they tried to follow but were quickly left in the dust. 


	4. A Better Change of Plans

The rain hadn’t let up, only having gotten worse since they’ve sped away from the motel. Ellis’ hands were pressed against the stab wounds in Nick’s abdomen, still bleeding profusely as it soaked into the man’s suit. He was still awake but unresponsive, his whole body shaking as the color drained from his face, eyes focused on nothing.

“Y’all,” Ellis’ voice portrayed his concern before having even say anything else. “Nick ain’t looking so good,”

Rochelle turned over her shoulder, biting her lip once she saw the sorry state their friend was in. She grabbed the limp hand dangling off the seat, placing her other hand over his when she felt him squeeze back.

“Ro, the bleeding won’t stop,” there was already a break in Ellis’ voice, his eyes crying his fear out to anyone who’d look at him.

“Nick,” Rochelle said, loud enough to get the gambler’s attention, as spastic as it was. “Nick, honey, just hang on okay? We’re gonna get you some help!”

“From what?” Coach barked, “Ain’t nothin’ here but freeways and zombies.”

“What are we supposed to do, Coach? Let him bleed to death in the back of the car?” Rochelle snapped, watching as Coach stole a quick look at Nick, brow farrowing into a concerned pinch.

“Don’t we have a medkit?” 

“Used to,” Rochelle admitted defeatedly, adding an edge of venom to her voice upon her next words. “Crazy bastard took it from me before shoving us in that room.”

Coach gripped the steering wheel tighter, brow creasing now in bitterness and anger. For a split moment he looked lost, brain scrambling to find _ something _ before their friend bled out, a rush of worry waving over him and what almost seemed like grief, like he had already given up.

Then he snapped into determination.

“Ellis, take off his suit jacket and tie it tight as you can  _ above _ the wound,” he instructed, the southerner springing immediately into action. Rochelle twisted into an awkward angle to be able to press her palms against the wound, unable to break the look of fear in the man’s eyes. It was something Rochelle hadn’t seen yet, despite everything that’s happened to them, never once did Nick flinch, even when he was almost gutted by a hunter. But as he lay in the back of a speeding car, after having escaped from something traumatic, bleeding into the seat, he realized just what was happening.

He was dying.

The shaking was only getting worse, body spasming on levels akin to a seizure. He wasn’t sure if that what was happening right now, everything felt too fuzzy to understand. It was as if someone was running his brain into the carpet, TV static replacing any noise surrounding him.

“Won’t stop the bleeding,” Coach’s voice pulled things back into reality. “But it’ll definitely slow it so we have more time to figure out what the hell we’re gonna do.”

“Whatever it is, we gotta figure it out fast. He ain’t gonna make it if we don’t.” Ellis almost sounded panicked, making an attempt not to let it be too obvious but was coming up short the longer Nick went without help. Damn the countryside, nothing for miles aside from long dead corn, zombies, empty roads, and apparently, child murdering psychopaths. 

The thought of what the southerner saw at the motel made his blood boil again, taking an incredible amount of willpower not to ball his fist, but instead focused on keeping his palm pressed firm to Nick's wound. While this world wasn't exactly ideal anymore, that was still no excuse to extinguish a life that had barely been lived. Children were innocent, not yet tainted by the horrors of adulthood and the mindset of ‘kill or be killed’ hadn't been trained yet. The children in that room looked no older than ten, maybe eleven. When Ellis was that age, he was busy getting into fights, playing in the mud, and learning his love of cars. Aside from the fights he was in, he was innocent. He didn't even know how to hold a gun yet. 

Now, almost twenty years later, there was a chance he'd have to take a gun to his friend's head to spare him the agony of bleeding to death. And it wouldn't have been the first time he'd had to pull the trigger. 

“Stop the car, Coach, stop the car!” 

Ellis practically threw himself over Nick to keep him from tumbling off the seat as Coach slammed on the breaks, tires screeching against long abandoned asphalt. When Ellis looked up, he felt as if his heart stopped in anticipation. A clinic, lights still shining bright through the storm, the LEDs flickering as if they were threatening to go out at any second. Without asking anything, Ellis forced the door on his side open and ran to Nick's, carefully pulling him out of the car and putting the man on his back with Rochelle’s help. 

“We don't even know what's in there!” Coach called from the car. “It could be overrun!” 

“S'why we got guns!” Ellis called back as he made his way to the entrance. If there was one smart thing Ellis ever did, it was stealing pistols from the man back at the motel, seeing as he wasn’t going to need them anymore.

“Ellis…” Nick’s voice was pitiful, small. Ellis could barely hear him over the rain despite the fact that the gambler’s mouth was right next to his ear. 

“Hang on, buddy,” Ellis said, attempting to reassure himself just as much as the other man. “Just hang on!” 

The hick practically kicked the door open, looking frantically around only to find no one. No zombies, no humans, just an empty clinic. But it was  _ clean _ . Everything was organized and sorted, there was a little bit of old blood on the floor, but Nick’s was quickly covering that small blemish. Someone had been here and they had been here  _ recently _ , zombies weren’t this clean. 

Unless they were about to meet a new super race of zombie. 

“Hello?! Someone, anyone! Please help us!” Ellis cried out despite of the potential danger, Rochelle and Coach closed in behind him, guns out and ready to defend what little they had left. “God, please, our friend is dying!” 

The desperation in Ellis’ voice must have attracted some sort of sympathy as a woman in a clean lab coat poked her head out from around a corner.

“Who are you?” she asked, her voice laced in a demanding tone. The way her arm was angled, Ellis could tell she was holding a gun in front of her, ready to defend herself at a second’s notice. Her eyes had gone to the pieces Rochelle and Coach held and Ellis quickly waved them away. 

“We don’t plan to hurt ya, I promise, we just want help for our friend.” 

Her eyes went to Nick, widening slightly when she saw the state he was in. He was as pale as his suit  _ used _ to be, and the amount of blood pooling at Ellis’ feet was… Alarming. It was amazing that Nick wasn’t dead yet, but he was going to be if they all just stood there and continued to stare and intimidate each other. 

“ _ Please, _ ” Ellis begged, his pleas desperate. 

“Jeff, we have work to do, get in here!” the woman finally called, rushing to the table at the center of the room. It looked like it had been dragged out of one of the rooms, along with all the equipment that came with it. But for what purpose? Why not just leave it in the room it belonged in?

“Get him onto the table, get that jacket off,” she ordered as she put down her gun on the counter where the check-in computer  _ used _ to be. As she began washing her hands - with a jug of purified water and dish soap over a bucket - a man in a lab coat just as clean as the woman's came out and saw the scene laid out before him. 

“Who the hell are these people?” 

“Does it matter? They need our help, their friend has lost a lot of blood.” 

“Are you fucking insane, Leah? What if he was bit?!”

“We're immune!” Ellis quickly defended, moving - what was left of - his sleeve out of the way to reveal a month's old bite on his shoulder. “We got into a fight with this crazy dude at a motel about fifteen miles from here and Nick got stabbed by ‘em. Check the wound, you'll see what I'm talkin’ about!” 

The woman, apparently named Leah, ripped at the blood soaked dress shirt and audibly went ‘holy shit’ when she saw just what she was dealing with. 

“Jeff, we can worry about who these people are later. That bite is over a month old and if they wanted to kill us they would have done it by now. Now get over here and  _ help _ me!” 

The man, named Jeff, cast one more glare at the others before following his colleague's actions, washing his hands in the same way she did before pulling on a pair of gloves. They spoke to each other in a lot of technical medical terms that Ellis didn't understand, but what he  _ could _ understand is that Nick was in bad shape, that the knife pierced something important but the word they used was way too complicated for Ellis to try and repeat in his head. They had completely removed Nick's shirt and tossed it aside. It was ruined, torn and stained that even if they  _ hadn't  _ ripped it and he put it on afterwards, he'd look like a serial killer. Not that that would really matter in this world anymore, but it didn't make for good first impressions. 

Nick was out cold at this point, whether it was from the blood loss or pain, Ellis didn't know. All he did know, however, was that these doctors weren't normal clinic workers, what they knew was too advanced, their equipment matching that. Now that he had a second to look around he realized that the table and its equipment didn't match the rest of the clinic, they brought this all in from somewhere else.

But from where? And how?

“What the hell is going on in here?” asked a booming and rather intimidating voice over the thunder, Ellis turning around to see four other survivors - soaked to the bone and covered in dirt and blood, none of it theirs - glaring death right back at him and the others. Next thing they knew, they had a gun in their face, Ellis and Rochelle putting their hands up defensively while Coach didn't flinch, he just returned their glare. 

“Who the fuck are  _ you _ people?!”

“James, would you put that gun away?! Their friend needed help!” 

“They could be working for  _ him _ , Leah, did you ever think of that?!”

“If they were, don't you think they would have shot me and Jeff by now?”

“You know how he is, he plays with your head!” 

“Who the hell is  _ he _ ?” Ellis asked in the panic, a gun being shoved closer into his face, the owner being James. 

“Don't fucking play stupid with me, hick!” 

“Get that goddamn gun out that boy's face or so help me,” Coach threatened, daring to take a step towards James, standing tall to tower over and intimidate him. 

“Move any closer and I'll paint the fucking floor with his brains!” and in a swift movement, James hooked an arm around Ellis' neck, bicep constricting his throat as he felt the steel barrel forced against his head. 

“James, stop this!” Leah protested, still working on Nick, who was blissfully unaware as to what was going on. 

“Who do you work for? Where is he?!”

“Son, we have no goddamn idea what you're talking about! It's just been the four of us since this outbreak started!”

“YOU'RE LYING!” 

“That's enough, James.” said a cool and less demanding voice, Coach and the others looking at the doorway to find a woman walking in on the scene. There was a wicked burn scar that spanned the entire right side of her face, Ellis getting a close look when she approached him, studying him for a moment before backing up.

“These aren't his people.”

“How do you know?” James asked, shoving the gun harder against Ellis’ head. 

“Because they don't have the slit in their nose. Let them go, James. And put the guns away, you're being rude to our guests.” 

As if he was controlled by string, James let Ellis go and he, along with the other survivors, put their guns away as told. 

“I'm sorry about all that. We've just all been on edge for a few weeks, can never be too careful, you know how it is.” the woman explained, fixing Ellis’ ruffled shirt. “I'm known as Scar, funny, I know, but I got the name before the mess on my face.” 

It was then Ellis realized that he hadn't even introduced himself, not that he really had a chance to. 

“Name's Ellis, big guy's Coach, that's Rochelle, and the guy yer docs are working on is Nick.” 

“Nick's in bad shape,” Scar observed, a tinge of concern edging her voice. 

“Yeah… We got jumped by this crazy dude at the motel and he stabbed--”

“Crazy dude?” Scar's attention snapped towards Ellis in an instant. “You didn't happen to get his name, did you?” 

“Well, no. He was too busy lockin’ us in rooms and trying to kill us.” 

“Do you remember what he looked like?” 

“Like a rabid animal,” Coach pitched in, bitterly. “Long and messy hair, beard that looked like he hadn't taken care of it in years.” 

“He looked completely insane,” Rochelle added. “Not to mention he… Oh my god, he…” she couldn't even finish, but the look of horror in her eyes told Scar everything she needed to know. 

“Sounds like you came across Arthur. He used to be in the group I was with before he was exiled for murdering one of our hunter's daughter. Crazy bastard, we should have just fed him to the zombies.” Scar explained, crossing her arms over her chest.

“Well, ya don't have to worry about him at least.” 

“Oh?”

“Nick done burned the freak to death with a molotov before we sped off with his car.”

“Ohhh the  _ car _ ,” Scar said, pinching the bridge of her nose. “That's why James was so convinced you were with him, you took Arthur's car.” 

“If you don't mind us asking,” Rochelle started. “Who is  _ he _ ?”

Scar looked at James, who offered her an uneasy look.

“You guys must not be from around here, else you'd know.” James said, his voice solemn. “ _ He _ is Solomon. A bastard of a man who started a gang of psychopaths when this whole thing started. They're no better than bandits, really. They steal whatever they want and kill whoever they want, if they don't try to force you to join, anyway.” 

“Most people think joining is better than dying.” Scar added, James snorting. 

“ _ Most _ , I myself would rather chew glass.” 

“And he'd probably make you…” 

“So why is this Solomon after you?” Coach asked, looking over to Nick. It looked as if they had stopped the bleeding and were focused on cleaning the wound. A gentle wave of relief washed over the man, but he was still keeping his guard up.

“Because we took his top lieutenant, along with a bunch of his shit,” James pulled Coach's attention back towards the group. “He's not too happy about that.” 

“Reckon he's talking about you,” Ellis said to Scar, who only nodded in response. 

“We can talk more about it later, right now I'd bet you guys just want to calm down for a while. Looks like you've been through hell lately,” Scar pointed out, and it was only then that Ellis finally felt how  _ exhausted _ he was. 

“Ya could say that,” 

“This clinic has showers that we got working a few days ago, you guys can use those while we find some clean clothes for you.” Scar offered, and the three of them sighed in blessed relief.

“What about Nick?” Rochelle asked.

“We'll get him taken care of, don't worry.” Scar's smile was sincere, warm, like she had been a friend for years. It was certainly a welcome change to what the group was used to. Military men screaming at them, pointing guns at them, locking them in rooms away from each other as needles were poked into them, studying them like animals. Or any other survivor they came across was either in the process of turning or tried to kill them for what little they had. 

But Scar seemed different, she looked like she  _ wanted _ to help. Ellis wasn't used to it, he used to be able to trust people at the drop of a hat, but based on the last year and a half they've suffered through, he was having difficulty doing that. The survival part of his brain was telling him to keep his guard up, no matter how friendly and safe everything seemed. He had to remember that just a few minutes ago, one of these people had a gun to his head, ready to shoot. 

And since Nick was down for the count, it was up to Ellis to be the skeptical one. 

But, God, was that going to be hard.

* * *

 

It was late at night now, the three of them had showered and gotten dressed in clean clothes that were left for them by Scar, along with bottles of purified water. Ellis had never felt so thirsty in his life than he did when he looked at that bottle sitting on the clothes left for him. He downed over half of it within a few seconds, feeling immediately better. He smiled at the choice of clothing presented before him, a green flannel and a pair of jeans, along with a black hoodie that he put on over the flannel, deciding to leave it unzipped. 

After he had dressed and made himself look as presentable as possible - he still desperately needed a haircut, but that was for another time - he decided to go pay Nick a visit. The doctors had finished patching him up over an hour ago, saying that if they had came in just been a few minutes later than he wouldn't have survived. Ellis swallowed past the lump in his throat, there was no point in dwelling on that now, Nick was alive and expected to make a full recovery. They just had to to take it easy for a little while. 

Yeah, right. With the world the way it was now?

Still, it wouldn't be too bad to stay here a little while, especially since everyone - well, almost everyone - was so nice. James was still wary of the group, and Ellis supposed he couldn't blame him, based on their own experiences. Jeff seemed indifferent, Ellis was convinced he only helped because Leah told him to, and Leah seemed sympathetic to them and their plight. Scar was an entirely different story, she was treating them as if they were old friends that she hadn't seen in years, giving them everything they asked for and then some. 

Ellis stole a look at Nick, who was still out cold and likely would be for another few hours. The color was slowly starting to return to his face and the shaking had stopped, all Ellis could do the for time being was listen to the steady beep of the heart monitor. 

“Man oh man, Nick, if only you were awake for all that,” he started, playing with the half empty water bottle in his hands. “Well, it's probably better that ya weren't, you probably woulda shot James before he even drew his gun.” 

Ellis almost waited for a response, despite the fact that he knew he wouldn't get one right now. Even then, he knew what Nick would have said, 

‘Fuck off.’ He was a simple man with simplistic words. 

“Scared the hell outta me, ya know. Scared Rochelle too, and probably Coach, but you know how he is, gotta stay tough for the rest of us. Double since yer out of it.” 

Ellis looked to the entryway of the clinic, James had said something before they all showered that he spotted zombies headed this way so they boarded up the doors and turned most of the power off aside from the emergency to keep Nick's vital machines up. The southerner wondered if they were left over from the horde they drove away from back at the motel, an uneasy feeling washing over him at the thought of having to drive them off without Nick helping them. 

Then his eyes went to the blood on the floor, specifically, Nick's blood. It had dried well onto the tile by now, Ellis having a hard time forgetting the way Nick said his name before they entered the clinic. 

_ “Ellis…”  _ The way it sounded, the desperation and fear laced in just one little word, it tugged harshly at the man's heart. He'd never heard Nick say his name like that before, and he decided he never wanted to hear it that way again. 

For now, he just focused on watching Nick's chest slowly rise and fall, grateful that they got him here just in time. Even though Nick was an asshole sometimes, he was still their friend, and it would be awfully quiet and lonely without him. He had his own way of showing that he cared about the rest of them, despite the fact he would never readily admit that he did. He wasn't as tough as he let on, he was just as tired and scared as the rest of them, and the apocalypse was taking as much as a toll on him as everyone else. 

_ “As stupid as it sounds, all I want anymore is to see a sunset again.” _

Nick's words from back at the motel suddenly echoed in Ellis’ head, remembering how much that sentence took him off guard. He never would have thought of Nick as a guy who enjoyed sunsets. Then again, Ellis can't remember the last time they even  _ saw _ the sun, it's always been overcast and grey, remembering just how desperate he was to feel the warmth of the it on his skin. 

He sat back in the chair he was sitting in now, putting the water bottle on the floor in front of him, deciding to save the rest for Nick despite the fact that he was still thirsty. He could just ask for another bottle, but part of him didn't want to be greedy, especially after all they've done for them already without asking for anything in return yet. Yet, that was the key word. Ellis wasn't sure what they could offer that would even begin to pay them back for what they've done, not to mention the medication they're probably going to have to give up to make sure Nick's wound doesn't get infected. Along with the bandages, things to clean the wound with, and a clean set of clothes. 

The southerner let out a sigh, crossing his arms over his chest as he stared at the wall. He supposed they'd work out an agreement when they could make sure Nick was going to pull through alright, even if it meant helping to find some of the supplies they used up. Being with a few other survivors certainly increased their chances of survival so even if they did have to help find supplies, they'd have an easier time of it based on how many people there'd be.

Still, Ellis was in no shape to go out and do anything. He hadn't slept in what felt like days and he was starving. But food was the last thing on his mind at moment, Nick and sleep were at the top of the list, and sleep was taking precedence. He could feel his eyelids getting heavier and harder to keep open, and eventually he didn't even feel like fighting it anymore and let himself drift off. 

He was sure everything was fine, if anyone needed him they could wake him up. He wasn't sure where Coach and Rochelle had gone, but he didn't feel any need to get up and find them, nor did it feel like they were in danger. If something were to happen, he's sure he would hear about it, it wasn't a particularly large clinic. 

The steady sound of the heart monitor eventually lulled him into an uneasy sleep, but it was still better than what he's gotten the last few days. 

* * *

 

_ “Don’t wake him just yet,” _

Ellis could swear he heard Rochelle’s voice pull him out of the deep sleep his body had slipped in, slowly regaining consciousness as he started hearing more voices. 

_ “He’s gonna wanna know, Ro.”  _

__ _ “I know, but just let him sleep a little longer, the past few weeks have been rough for him.”  _

__ _ “It’s been rough for all of us.”  _

__ _ “I know, but on him especially”  _

_“I was_ ** _stabbed_** _for god’s sake,”_

That was Nick’s voice. 

_ “It’s not a competition, Nick…”  _

__ _ “Well if it was, I’d be winning.”  _

__ _ “Son I outta knock you out again.”  _

__ _ “Do it, you won’t.”  _

__ “Not even awake for more than a minute, and already Nick’s pickin’ fights.” Ellis adjusted himself from the uncomfortable position he slid into on the chair, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. 

“Nice goin’, you woke the kid up.” Nick said, his voice grating and hoarse. “How was the nap?” 

“How long was I out?” Ellis asked, skipping over Nick’s question. 

“Few hours? Dunno, I just woke up myself.” Nick admitted, putting his head back onto the pillow given to him. Ellis could see him wincing but trying to hide it, the sight not making it past Rochelle either as she offered him a sympathetic look. 

“You were out cold for about three hours,” Coach explained, sitting back on a chair of his own. “I didn’t want to wake ya, neither did Rochelle.” 

“Guess we didn’t do a good job of that,” the woman admitted with a laugh. 

“Naw, I needed to get up anyway,” Ellis said, stretching his neck that now, thanks to his obnoxious sitting position, had a kink in it. “How ya feelin’, Nick?” 

“Like I got stabbed and almost bled to death,” answered the gambler in a short tone. “Where the hell are we, by the way?” 

“A clinic we found on the side of the freeway,” Rochelle explained. “The people here are nice.” 

“They’re not military, are they?” Nick asked, head perking up again and body stiff, as if he was ready to take off at a moment’s notice. Ellis couldn’t blame him, they hadn’t had the best luck with the military lately. He could swear he was  _ still  _ sore from the last round of experiments they were forced to take part of. 

Thankfully, Rochelle shook her head and Nick seemed to relax a little. “No. One of them is ex-navy, but he retired before the outbreak even started. Said his status didn’t get him very far in the way of protection…” 

“Go figure,” Nick snorted. 

“Can’t say I was surprised,” A deep and familiar voice caused Nick to pick his head up again, and the others all turned theirs towards James, who had just walked into the clearing they were all sitting in. “All they care about is helping themselves, doesn’t matter who gets hurt while they do it.” 

James looked at Ellis, who still seemed a bit on edge from the earlier incident. “I uh… Wanted to apologize for my behavior when you folks first got here. We’ve run into some pretty shitty luck lately and I took it out on you,” He rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly and Ellis could feel a smile creeping onto his face. “Sorry about that.” 

Ellis waved a dismissive hand. “Water under the bridge, buddy, ain’t the first time I’ve had a gun pointed at my head.” 

Nick threw a quick glare a James, who cleared his throat in response. 

“Oh, good, your friend is awake. I was starting to get worried.” Scar came into view then, the doctors following shortly after. 

“Jeez, how many people do you have here?” Nick asked, earning a careful ‘be nice’ swat from Rochelle. 

“We have three other survivors, but they’re all resting right now. I only wanted to check in and see how everyone was doing.” Scar pulled up a chair that wasn’t being used and straddled the back of it, crossing her arms over the backrest. “And also offer more explanation on Solomon.” 

“Who the hell’s Solomon?” Nick asked. 

“‘Parently he’s some crazy prick that started up a gang of killers and thieves when the outbreak started,” Ellis explained, Scar nodding along in confirmation. “Scar said she was a part of it but got rescued by James and the others, and that pissed Solomon off and he’s sendin’ people after ‘em.” 

Nick looked at Scar, almost unimpressed. “Scar, huh.” 

“Short for Scarlett,” the woman admitted. “I got the nickname before the burn mark.” 

“Guessing that was courtesy of this Solomon schmuck.”

“Right you are. You catch on quick.” 

“I have to,” Nick then looked at James, equally unimpressed. “So you rescue Scar from this dude and he gets pissed enough to send people after you. There has to be more to it than that.” 

“There is,” James almost sighed, crossing his arms over his chest as he began to explain. 

Scar had contacted them via the walkietalkies they had on their person, the group apparently scouting the surrounding area of Solomon’s compound to see if any kind of raid would be possible. The group was starving and had nothing during that time and were desperate, especially since they were willing to risk being caught by Solomon’s men. Which had meant certain death for all of them, but James had argued they had nothing left to lose. 

Scar offered a key to a warehouse far enough away from the main compound that they may be able to take what they needed without being seen, the only condition was that Scar went with them. James had been hesitant in agreeing, only because he was reluctant to add another mouth to feed to the group, and the fact that this was Solomon’s top lieutenant. But the doctors, Jeff and Leah, convinced him to agree, because they needed the supplies or they were going to die. If Scar turned out to be tricking them, she would have been outnumbered, despite how weak they all were. 

However, Scar had made good on her promise, and the warehouse was packed with food, medical supplies, water, clothes. Basically everything they needed to survive in the apocalypse. There was also a car, a large pickup truck that still had plenty of gas and room for all of them - if a few of them sat in the bed - and, according to James himself, he wept at the sight of it all. It was like a beacon of hope and safety after they had been struggling for so long. 

However, they had gotten caught by someone scouting the perimeter, unable to knock him out before he sent out a warning to the others in the compound. They had to work fast to take as much as they could, James focusing on food, the doctors focusing on medical supplies, Scar focusing on clothes, and the others on weapons and ammo. By the time they had taken all that they could carry and pack into the truck, there was already a group of Solomon’s men upon them, including the man himself who faked being hurt that Scar would betray him.

They fought off Solomon and his men the best they could while Leah - who apparently worked in a car garage while she was in medical school, this fact making Ellis more interested in the story - got the car started, having to hotwire it as they didn’t have the keys. Once it was started and the others began piling in, Scar had taken a baseball bat and used it to take Solomon’s knees out, the man retaliating by throwing a molotov right at the truck. In a display of desperation and, likely, the most badass thing James had ever seen, Scar had stood up from the bed of the truck with the bat and used it to hit the molotov before it hit  _ them _ . 

Unfortunately, her face had taken a lot of damage from the explosion, along with some of the supplies they had just stolen. 

“But it could have been a lot worse,” Scar pointed out. “I lived, didn’t I? And we were able to salvage a decent amount from the supplies that got burned.” 

“Hold on, you mean to tell me you batted a fucking  _ molotov _ out of the air?” Nick said, almost dumbfounded. 

Scar shrugged. “I played softball in highschool.” 

“Those supplies aren’t going to last us forever, though,” James began again, putting everyone back on topic. “This was about ten months ago, at the height of the outbreak, and we have had to go through a lot because of that. There isn’t anything here for miles, and while this clinic has been a blessing…” 

“James is right,” Leah added. “We’re going to have to relocate in order to survive. James and the others barely found anything during their last outing, anything that  _ was _ in this area had been picked clean a long time ago.” 

“Where are we supposed to go, then?” Jeff snapped, causing Leah to flinch. Nick narrowed his eyes at the man, assumptions swimming in his head. None being anything he liked. “Every time we’ve tried to relocate we haven’t found jackshit for more than a few days.” 

“Unfortunately, the apocalypse doesn’t follow any real estate rules, Jeff, nowhere is going to be perfect. The whole point is to keep moving.” James shot back, the two of them glaring at each other. 

“And what  _ is _ the point of that? When do we  _ stop _ moving?! I’m tired of always being on the run with no hope of finding anywhere to stay! This clinic is perfect and safe, so what if you have to go out a little further for supplies!” 

“A  _ little _ further? I was gone for two fucking  _ days! _ ” 

“Then make it three!” 

Ellis got in between the both of them, separating them before things had gotten too ugly. It was impressive to see him move that fast, if it was back when they all first met, James would have landed a hell of a punch before Ellis even got up. 

“Y’all, this isn’t accomplishing anything!”

“You wanna stay here so bad, Jeff, then be my guest! But me and the others are gonna move on whether you like it or not, we have to if we want to survive!” 

“No one is going anywhere, dammit!” 

“Says the fuck  _ who _ ? Last time I checked,  _ I _ was the leader of this group.” 

“Maybe it’s time for a change!” 

“ _ What _ ?” 

“When was the last time you did  _ anything _ substantial, James? You didn’t even find this clinic, your wife did!” Jeff said, pointing to Leah. “While you were out there with your thumb up your ass, we’ve been working to make this place safe from the zombies, rationing the supplies in a way that’ll keep us for at least another year, and keeping you alive! Since you decided that you have to always fall on the sword and play the goddamn hero!” 

“You ungrateful piece of shit,” James snarled, Ellis struggling to keep the man back. He had about six inches and over a hundred pounds on Ellis, it wouldn’t be hard to shove the southerner out of the way and go straight for the doctor’s throat. Nick cursed at himself internally for getting so fucked up, he didn’t like where this situation was heading. 

“After everything that I’ve done for you and the others,  _ this _ is all you have to say to me? I should knock you right back into your fucking place!” 

“I’d like to see you try, you--” 

“ENOUGH!” 

Scar’s booming voice caused everything to stop. It was silent in almost an instant, James had stopped pushing against Ellis’ hold and Jeff’s eyes had gone to the floor. Nick was starting to question just who the  _ real _ leader was. 

“Jeff, James has sacrificed a lot for all of us, it’s not fair to say that he does nothing. He is right, we do need to move on if we have any hope of surviving. There are places better than this clinic.” Her voice was eerily calm after shouting such a demanding order. 

“Like?” 

“I don’t know, but we’ll never find it if we hide here. Besides, you know how Solomon works, he will find this place eventually.” 

Jeff said nothing more, only keeping his eyes to the floor. 

“If y’all are done gettin’ ready to tear each other apart,” Ellis butt in, taking his hand off of James’ chest. “We made a plan to go to Topeka.” 

“Kanas?” Scar tilted her head. 

“Yep! I heard from some folks that there’s this huge compound that was abandoned by the military. Buncha survivors took over and turned it into a safe haven for anyone willin’ to put some work into keeping it running.” 

The others all looked at each other. 

“You sure this place exists?” James asked cautiously. 

“I ain’t promisin’ anything, but it’s better than just sittin’ around here with nowhere to go.” 

Nick raised a brow. The Ellis he knew would have filled them with false hope, making a promise he likely couldn’t keep. It’s torn the man down more than once, especially after New Orleans proved to be nothing more than a bust. Maybe the kid was finally maturing, realizing the realistic side of things instead of living in a world of nievety. Nick wasn’t entirely sure he liked it, while he himself was a pessimist through and through, it was kinda nice to have someone with them who always saw the brighter side of things, no matter how annoying it got sometimes. 

James looked at Scar, who had returned to her relaxed state on the chair. “Well? What do you think, Scar?” 

The woman shrugged again. “It’s better than nothing, and the more distance we put between ourselves and Solomon, the better. He’d be willing to follow us far, but even he doesn’t have the manpower and supplies to go all the way out to Kansas.” 

“We can come with y’all, if you’d like. We still need to repay you for everything, especially savin’ our friend.” Ellis suggested, his words being met with a nod of approval from Scar. 

“Well…” James seemed almost hesitant, Nick would dare even say he was nervous. “I suppose having more people around would make the trip safer. Anyone have any objections or concerns?” 

“Only that we’re going to have to ration our supplies to accommodate the four of them,” Leah pointed out, but there wasn’t a bitter edge in her voice like Nick was expecting. She spoke as if she was stating a simple fact that didn’t affect them. 

“They can help us look for more while we’re traveling,” James decided, none of the four seeing an issue with that. Even the gambler had to admit when his ass had been saved, he was convinced that he was going to be done in by some crazy asshole with a god complex. 

“If that’s the only concern,” James looked at Jeff, who said nothing in response. “Then I’ll break the plan to the others once they wake up. For now, we need to focus on making sure Nick is going to be able to make the trip.” 

“I suggest we stay here for a few more days. I want the wound to heal enough for him to move around without hurting himself further.” Leah then looked at Nick and offered a warm smile. “I saw the other, older wound on your stomach. It’s going to leave a hell of a scar because it wasn’t taken care of properly, not that was any fault of yours. But I’ll make damn sure that you’ll have one less.” 

Nick was taking back for a second, not being used to someone looking at him so kindly, with the intent to care for him so willingly. 

“Thanks…” Was all he could get out. He blamed it on how tired he was. 

“Now, if we’re done screamin’ at each other and whatnot,” said Coach, who had his arms crossed over his chest. “When you came in and stopped James from shootin’ Ellis, you said you knew we weren’t part of Solomon’s crew. Something about a slit in the nose?” 

“Ah,” Scar drew out. “Solomon is a sadistic bastard, when you join up with him, he cuts into one of your nostrils and removes some of it. Just so he knows who belongs to him.” She then pointed a thumb at her own nose and sure enough, some of the nostril had been butchered away. 

“Christ,” Coach groaned. “Is this guy fucked up in the head or what?”

“Very likely.” Scar then stood up and cast her attention towards Nick. “Now, why don’t you guys try to get some rest? Me and James will bring out some cots for you to sleep on.” 

Before any of them had time to say anything, Scar and the others had left, leaving the survivors to themselves. 

“She’s right, I’m exhausted.” Rochelle admitted. 

“We’re gonna be here a while, might as well get our strength up,” Nick said, already closing his eyes. “Besides, I feel like shit. I wouldn’t mind being comatose for a few more hours.” 

As the cots were brought in as promised, Coach couldn’t help but stay awake long after the others had fallen asleep. There was a feeling in the pit of his stomach that he couldn’t shake, a feeling of oncoming dread. He wanted to be hopeful, but after suffering disappointment after disappointment, he couldn’t bring himself to be as optimistic as he once was. 

Something bad was going to happen soon, he could feel it.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know how most people feel about shoving non-canon characters into a fanfic but Left 4 Dead itself is so lacking in characters aside from the survivors themselves and a handfull of named NPCs. And, well, I doubt Virgil the boat driver knows how to perform surgery. So hopefully this once I can get a pass haha

**Author's Note:**

> The beginning of a project I've been working on since April of this year. I've always wanted to write something for a game that means so much to me, and so here I am!  
> I make the disclaimer now that, since Value hasn't offered much on the backstory of these characters aside from a few snippets, I've taken it upon myself to add to their character, hence the canon-divergence tag.   
> The tags, relationships, and characters will be added into the description as the story goes on. Wouldn't want to spoil it all ;)


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